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Hubris of an Ephemeral Race

An Omen of Cosmic Significance

“Oh, feed me thy concern,Thy dreadful, fearing concern.But do not forgetThat all have pride to earn.

“Give us our time,If of prophecies you speak,And all shall be fine,As our kind may be meek.”

Of seeping spies I do know, Sleeping in eternity.And surely, long agoIn Nature’s one paternity.

And all, truly, truly, lost.

But hark for my warningAnd cease thee thy mourningOf olden steeples brightAnd towers of ever, ever fright.

For I have rowed through the rivers of time;Slept in the burgs of spaceAnd returned, with one prophetic rhymeDestined to cure you, O you sinful race!

But softly, do whisperOf your chests of brazen gold.Behold! thy sisterOf unknown craters old.

But forget not thy patience—Thy starvèd simple patience.Bring me all earsAnd thou shall see my frightful concern.

Though your fate is laid out;Laid out plain,

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Do not fear, yet,For all are afforded the same.

“Ah, but end us our sufferingAnd you will see truly—There is no greater source of sufferingThan our preoccupation, duly.”

SilenceIs the only viceIn a society driven by greedAnd derided from price.

O, do not forget;Do not forget thyself,For to forget is to forsake,To forsake thyself.

O, imitation of a greater breadth!O, conformity to shells!O, forsaken every last breath,And damned all else to hell!

Do hear this,That your societyIs in want of renewalOf a most desperate degree.

It leeches, and reaches for lifeIn a cold valley of sufferers.Always in strife,With prospects of each—Each in both hand,One procures a sharper toolTo make thee like sand.

But soft, let us returnTo your endless atrocities,So that all might learnThat you, all the Universe pities.

Now surrender thine armsOf silvered, crafted steel,

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And disband your farmsOf suffering surreal.And listen, verily,To my tale, made readily:

In the portal of the plane fourfold that of oneWorry did not reach me,And all beings pure and bright did comeTo greet me—anomaly.

For I am no inhabitant Of hidden, inner space.I did not long linger, but set tentUpon that crimson face.

They called uponAnd came to me,And all at once,They give this plea!

“Send thee thy word,”Said they,“And see to it that thy shining hopeDoes stay:

“Snowfall of a cosmic hueWill come upon and rain on you;In darkness of tales unmatched‘Tis true, Death will be dispatched.”

“But soft,” said I,“Do tell why.Cannot we try?Do tell why.”

And, with a heavy sigh,They did reply:

“Time does not make loans,Nor does responsibility vanish:The longer Earth postpones,The sooner all will famish.

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“Give up thee they pride,Thy centricities of confidence.And do not let resideIn your mind, thoughtlessness.

“Give it all,For Death is oldAnd none are toldThat Life is all.

“O, do submit!Submit thy painful, rendered hate.Suppress thy thoughts,Plans, too, of late.

“O, do submit!Surrender all hubrisOf hardened, evil minds;And do not forget, Forget not this caution.”

And so, rain down it willOf cosmic extermination.Truly, ‘tis untilAll cease their hurried syncopation.

And wait, another moment,For ere I depart,I’ve one more impression—‘Tis my duty to impart:

The Nebulosity of Death

It holds us, still,Hold us gently,Holds us by our will,Holds us indefinitely.

For death has never lost grip of life.It loves it too much:A cosmic crossing, eternally in strife—It happens as such.

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“But wait!There is still timeFor reflectionsAnd regressionsOf a troubled universe;

And decisionsOf old, narrowed-out arteriesOf hearts and minds,Feet and ears.

Is there not?”

Your lines,Your communications;Your waves,And self-mutilationsNever realize their potential.They are essentially influential;Consequential, they lead to your demise.

But feel this, truly, That meaning is relative to our views of itAnd none may perceiveThe form of reality, undeceived.Nearby found it remains,But ever, ever, sweet mystery it sustains.

A thought arises;It is waiting to be known.All, it surprises,For the future it has now shown.

Our prejudices,Our centricities,Have no place in the Universe.

In caverns of longing,Deep caves of lostThere is no stronger sense of belongingFor a miasmatic frost.

For it warms us,

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It . . . eats us alive.And we love it.

Listen—

Music of the mind and soul, itEtches and sketches the universe,Through the universe,Through the universe,It perseverates its place, But yet no space is left for the raceOf cosmic opportunity in vitality’s face.

Bathing in eternal void,It ceases to recallIf it even exists at all.

It knows, though, We know,To listen is to forget;To discover is to regret.

We have grownAnd festeredOn a one-way street,Destined for destiny;Derived from Death;Delusional to demerit.

The question that fuels us,That rules us,Which schools us,With sufferingAnd pools usWith every other living thing:What is seen after dark?What survives past usurpationOf a seeping, weeping soul?

Many do recall,A time, when space and time are met—But they all must fallFor a discorded debt.

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The notes of an ancient thoughtSee it, now,That life is dreamt;Caught, fought, distraught.And ignorance spreadsLike a cold virus which wisdom dreads.

The Apocalypse

The ground cracks and falls:The Universe in spiteAnd all mountains brave and tallShake in hellish fright!

Vigor is abandoned;Hope, ‘tis absent.The Earth sheds its skinIn its human resent!

Oh, Nature, where is your pity?Have you no more patienceFor a weakened worldOf weakened sense?

Nature, it is cruel,But humanity, ‘tis worse!For ‘tis merely a foolWithin its shining hearse.

But wills are not all;Nor is the seeping curse.Before thy great fall,Do hear this desperate verse!

Hear, hear indeed these words,And from thy pride do uncurl,And fluttering of thine arms and swords—For I am atop the world!

Do not despair in thy condition,For, from above I do seeThe prospects of one widespread mission

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Which our Nature does decree.

But remember; do recallThe heaviest fact of all:

Do not refrain,The solemn hand of Time,For this fearsome rainFalls only for human crime.

Up ahead I perceiveA world of insidious grasping;And famished treesFor dire aid eternally rasping!Humans run amissAnd humanity is eclipsed.

But fret not over far-off landsAnd worlds of dirt and sand.For if one only understands, One simple solution demands:

Reclaim the Earth! Let it live on—let it fall in thy shivering sunsets,And mountains of heavenly intent!Let it sit in your seas of shearing blue and green,And calmly cross its legs, And you will see it will do you no harm.

For love sweeps us up,And apathy drops us.But without any luck,We all will soon rust.

Though luck does not really existAnd in reliance, all must desist.For the Earth is our only resortOn an ocean of nothingness.

Oh Earth, thou art sinking!Violent have thee commenced,And violent thy thinking.For thee, passion has tensed

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In its most sinister shrinking.

Chains reach over the landscape,Reaching over the landscapeAs a freight train that holds fearLike a two-sided blessing.

The hammer and anvil beat onAnd on,And on.We pretend and pretend, but fall short at the throne.And the sword and cannon beat onAnd on,And on.We bury them and then put them back up in stone.

If turns to when; when turns to now.We disguise our blessings in numbers and lettersAnd keep our lives away from the lightLest we be burned with silent resignationOf hardened shadows; draw-out decrees.

Our vision sees only behind and ahead,And so we fall where we stand.If only, if only insteadWe’d obeyed Nature’s sole command.

We tie our fingers to remember, but tie our necks to forget.And we forget.

That Nature is the only inevitably of existence;We cannot march on without Nature’s subtle grace!Our minds hold a nativity for the Apocalypse before it comes to be.Our chains would reach all the way to heaven had we not started to see.

But now is not too late, I dare think;Our great nature must not end this way!And so, as our withered raft begins to sink,With all the world’s blessing, I do say:

Reclaim the Earth!Let it sizzle upon a summer day,Or sit in the rain;

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Let it breathe into the forestsAnd its sweet life sustain.

Crumbled consciousness trembles and fallsWhile troubled volcanos of hate and pity rise:The ending in disguise!

Cracks in time and spaceHold all that is dear.It is humanity’s greatest fear:Extinction without a trace!

But do not set blame upon the Earth,Nor curse Nature’s solemn cry,For the Universe will see another birthLong after human stones crumble and dry.

And haply, this renaissance of sortsWill not forsake its one creator,As upon the bones of humanity’s corpseWill this new life live, one step greater.

But distant peace is not yet come,Nor has the Earth ceased in its crumbling display,And the skies do not desist to drum,For the last day is now today!

But calm, I insist—Do not let panic consume.For the sooner humans desist,The sooner will our mission resume.

And hear again, hear these words,As hope does now elude,For it is death that we are headed towardsBut ‘tis not so if our vanity’s subdued.

It is true:Above all lies And passions that are dry, It is I, that perceives Earth's great freeze:

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Thy hardened feet, Thy bruisèd eye; Thy desert street, Thy desert sky. 

Thine olden hate, Thy seeping sand; Thy destined fate, Thy weakened stand.

One last call demandsEre Nature’s willed hand commands!

Cease thee thy mourning  And take up thy learning! Forget thee thy yearning And seize thee thy learning!

Love festers and sleeps In a world of startled gray; Humans walking like sheep, Forgetting the day that is today.

But wake, do wake And perceive the light of dawn, And take, do take Thine agèd hope, still strong. 

Dust off thy brazen key And light will dust thee; Take off thy blindfold And thou shall finally see.

The Barrens

Consciousness returnsIn my descent from the sky.I am now assuredNone are graver than I!

The softened sand sits in stormsOf wayward intent.

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Listen, they did, but no one learnsUntil their loss they do lament.

This world, ‘tis abandoned,And weeds and worms do cry.The cause, I examined:Fate without due reply.

I did set courseTo warn all humanity;And my solemn verseWas accepted to insanity.

It is the nature of the Universe,But wherefore so melancholy?It is Nature that will forceWithout need of demagogy.

But neither could coerceThe will of beingsThat, in their sourceLive like machines.

How cold a curseThe fell humanity!To see the UniverseFrom hardened vanity.

But I must now returnEre the last Sun sets,And another time mournBefore the last man regrets.